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2012: The battle against al-Shabaab

Several principal roads in and around the capital were locked down by government troops in recent days amid threats by Al-Shabaab to launch deadly attacks. The site of Sunday's suicide bombing was just reopened a day ago.

Emergency vehicles, sirens wailing, rushed to the gruesome scene, where incinerated bodies and body parts were strewn across the road. The wounded, some of them seriously injured, were rushed to the hospital.

A bulldozer sifted through the rubble, which covered most of the street.

"What have they done to us?" one woman wailed.

The latest attack comes two days ahead of a conference on Somalia in London, where Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is expected to present his plans to rebuild the military and the country as a whole, as well as solicit international support.

Al-Shabaab has waged several recent attacks in Somalia.

Last month, at least 10 heavily armed militants forced their way into a court building in Mogadishu, killing 29 people, sources said.

In that attack, some assailants detonated explosives while others exchanged fire with government security officers, witnesses said.

At least nine members of Al-Shabaab were also killed, the sources said.

Somalia's president has called the uptick in strikes "nothing but a sign of desperation by the terrorists," saying the militants "are in complete decline."

Somalia's government, backed by African Union peacekeepers, has been battling Islamist guerrillas for years.